Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
Bethesda had 2 of their big guns ready to roll this year and each one hit very hard. The Evil Within 2 looked terrifying but amazing and the star of the show was Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein: The New Order was a massive surprise for nearly everyone. A brilliant story driven shooter that was intensely difficult, but very satisfying to play. The New Colossus looks to be every bit as entertaining as the original, however Machine Games now have the trust and the budget to deliver something very special. From the trailer and the reports of gaming journos having played the game, it sounds absolutely phenomenal and mechanically wild. Shooting in a wheel chair, now that sounds like something never done before and the cast look to be every bit as wacky and memorable as the first entry. The premise of the story looks very entertaining and Machine Games is not shying away from the challenging content like Nazis or tough political situations. The other major tick that Wolfenstein receives is the fact that it is sticking to the Bethesda formula of coming out this year! I can’t wait.
Microsoft had ticked every box as their press conference went forward. Native 4k gaming, 6 terraflops of GPU and “The Most Powerful Console on Earth.” They also started to highlight some of the game that we would be playing on it that looked absolutely insane. The new Assassins Creed, Shadow of War, Super Lucky’s Tale, Crackdown and State of Decay all promised entertaining experiences, running in 4k. We will see if this is true, however the console is currently 100 dollars more than the competition and this was the huge issue when the Xbox One and the PS4 launched. Will we see developers take advantage of the specs that Microsoft has offered or will they stick with what the Pro can offer. This will cause significant issues for Microsoft and the X, as then the same experiences are being offered for a higher priced box. This could easily be fixed with some first party exclusive games, but once again we didn’t really see anything unique, promising or unexpected. Phil Spencer did say there are a number of unannounced exclusives still coming that are 2-3 years away, which is fantastic, but for the minute the Xbox One X is a really hard sell. 650 Australian Dollars for someone who doesn’t own a 4k TV is not really selling me at this current moment. We will see if it is a hit when it launches, but with all the hype from last year, I really think Microsoft’s big bang, ended with more of a fizzle.
Wolfenstein is a game that looks absolutely amazing, while Shadow of War is a game I am still really not convinced is going to be good or better than its predecessor. This is coming from someone who considered Shadow of Mordor 2014′s best game. All the gameplay and trailers shown so far have highlighted very similar combat mechanics to the first game in combat areas that look very similar to the first game. This is fine if there are significant improvements made and Shadow of War needs to highlight these. I enjoy the aspect of humour and a more light hearted nature explored with the character of Bruz from the Microsoft Conference, but what I am intrigued to know is how much is procedurally generated and how much of it is scripted. This really is a waiting game for me and I hope Monolith nail it.
Sony’s Remastered Conference
Remember last year when everyone lost their minds about how good a show Sony put on. I think everyone forgot that E3 is about showing off games that people can play. Remember why people enjoy Bethesda’s conferences, games that come out near after they announced. Games that are not just concepts at the time they are being shown off. In 2016 Sony showed off Death Stranding, Detroit: Become Human, Days Gone, Spiderman and God of War not to mention The Last of Us part II at Playstation Experience. We have played 0 minutes of these games and we will play 0 minutes of these games in 2017 and I am sure that we will 0 minutes of these games in 2018. This to me is alarming as Sony is so cocky and over confident that they can show off games that are not coming for years and years to generate good press. Everyone seems to be in love with everything they are doing at this point that they didn’t realise once again they showed off games that are well and truly miles off releasing. I think this year, it became more evident that these bigs games are going to be fantastic when they launch, but it would have been so much more impactful if they announced and showed off God of War and Days Gone this year and released them at the end of this year. Sony is well ahead with sales and this is giving them free reign to do whatever they like. Surely at some stage it is going to come back and bite them in the ass.
Nintendo delivered this year. Metroid Prime 4, A Pokemon game for Switch, excellent looking DLC for the game of the year, Zelda and the general support that the Switch needs to be the console that so many fans desperately want. Nintendo had a fantastic conference and continue to deliver for their fans. This along with Super Mario Odyssey and Nintendo have one exciting future.
